I have a couple of HP ML 110 G5’s here in my office. I was doing some maintenance and did BIOS upgrades to them to the latest version available here. Immediately AFTER the BIOS upgrade, I noticed that the fans in the system ran at full speed ALL the time… the noise was intense in my little office. Like most of us however, I didn’t have time to dig into it and I left it be.
Over Christmas break I’ve been doing a little bit of work and finally the noise of these servers really got to me, so I decided to investigate. The HP support forums are actually full of people talking about this problem. Some have resolved it by downgrading their BIOS to an older version. The real answer though is not in the BIOS at all, but the Systems Management Firmware. You need to upgrade BOTH in order for the fans to slow down properly as they should. You can get the latest Systems Management Firmware here.
So buried in the release notes for the BIOS upgrade is a note as below. It is the only suggestion that we should do BOTH at the same time. In future I’ll be taking note of that tip!
When upgrading to BIOS version 2009.10.09 or later HP requires that the BMC version 3.11 or later is also installed on the system in order for proper server operation.
Now that I’ve done the upgrade to both, the loudest thing in my office is fan from the Netgear switch… hmmm must see about that too 🙂
Hi!
Here is the solution http://forums11.itrc.hp.com/service/forums/questionanswer.do?threadId=1383929
But I did’t try yet 🙂
Ok, it works for me 🙂
Thank’s sbsfaq.
I’ve got the save problem with my 2 HP ML110 G5 (Xeon 3065 – 2.33GHz) after upgrade firmware from 03/12/2009 to 10/09/2009 version.
http://h20000.www2.hp.com/bizsupport/TechSupport/SoftwareDescription.jsp?lang=en&cc=US&swItem=MTX-88855a19cf384e07b3ca617154&mode=5
I knew that to loud fan noise it’s a must to upgrade BMC Firmware to version 3.11 (or later), but I was unable to find the wright link to Systems Management Firmware at HP site before reaching sbsfaq.com
Thank you so much.
That did the trick for me. HP Tech Support told me I needed to upate my BIOS before they would work with me on a RAID problem. As soon as I did the cooling fan started running a full speed all the time. I update the firmware also as suggested and it returned to normal speed.
Glad it helped Karl – thanks for letting us know 🙂
*****Great help, thank you!*****
Thanks.
Worked like a charm,
Thanks a million! I have this server in my room at the moment and I was going crazy from the noise.
Excellent tip.
Glad it helped!
A quick seach on Google and I found your post which saved my hearing 😀
Upgraded the bios to 25-10-2010 and Lights-Out firmware to 3.20b and no repeat of the full fan problem.
Thanks a million! Wifey gettin’ kinda’ grumpy because of the noise 🙂
Dude.. YOU ROCK. Thank you.
Thank you very much!
Serioulsy, first result in Google and you are AWESOME!
HP didn’t want to hear from me about it
Great! Worked a charm. Thanks.
Perfect, this fixed a recently updated server for me!
Many thanks!
It worked great and the fan is quiet again. Many thanks!
Thank you!!!!
The noisy fan is fixed now. My ears say Thank you for the hint! Daniel
No problems – glad to be of help!
Work Perfectly…. :)tested on srv2k8r2 std 21042012
http://goo.gl/EeRUC (Firmware – Management | Revision History)
http://goo.gl/keeRv
Type: Firmware – Management
Version: 3.20 (B) (22 Jun 2010)
Thanks, I didn’t realize this server still had hooks from lights-out – that’s what this firmware referenced on HP’s site. After going through the motions, it worked.
On another note, anyone that has the Power-Y Cable for SATA Hard drives – note that HP has a recall on them. I don’t have a link for it, but HP is sending a replacement cable – then scheduled a tech to come install it (I didn’t see that you can opt out of the tech part).
The server I had regarding this, had a bad hard drive as part of the RAID-1 array, and the other drive wouldn’t pass the tests in the RAID setup (F8 on boot). So we replaced both drives, installed the dead one, rebuilt the RAID. Then replaced the other and rebuilt the RAID again.
– Mark
Dude, you rock! 🙂
I upgraded BMC and the fans went down roughly 1000RPM and the noise lowered drastically.
Thanks!
Thanks!! Really thanks!!
Yeah what a nightmare! HP says their latest BIOS is *CRITICAL* so I installed it using the Windows 64 utility. Server reboots and gets BIOS beep codes – server is bricked. Either I didn’t wait long enough at a black screen – waited 15 minutes and then power-cycled, maybe too soon but no indications. Most likely BIOS upgrade got corrupted. Luckily some digging research some other wonderful person (who doesn’t work for HP) posted a message about “oh yeah you gotta remove Jumper 15 to be able to re-flash the BIOS – not mentioned anywhere in the HP documentation. Made a floppy disk utility it took 30 minutes to cold-flash the BIOS back to a bootable state then the fan runs like crazy. Another hour of goggling and making yet another bootable USB key and finally the fan quiets down and I can get back to my life again. IT WOULDN’T KILL HP TO PROPERLY CAREFULLY AND FULLY DOCUMENT ALL THEIR DAMN BIOS UPDATE PROCEDURE, RECOVERY PROCEDURES AND MENTION YOU GOTTA FLASH THE MANAGENT CONTROLLER FIRMWARE TOO!
Thanks Wayne, the gift that keeps on giving (silence).